“A climate time bomb is clicking”.
This is the statement made on March 20 by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, at the release of the sixth climate assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The assessment, which is available online, outlines in more-concise terms than ever before, that “Global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase … from unsustainable energy use, land use and land-use changes, lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production.”
There are two basic metrics to follow the trajectory of global warming: The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere in parts per million (ppm), which returns heat to Earth, and the resulting rise in the global temperatures.
For about a million years, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere ranged between 180 and 300 ppm, often caused by volcanic eruptions and other cyclic forces. Between the last ice age, some 10,000 years ago, and the Industrial Age, the Earth’s temperature has never ranged outside a plus- or minus-1 degree Celsius range or “corridor of life.” Climate change refers to the warming of the planet beyond that “corridor” due to our burning fossilized carbon and release of other greenhouse gases, including methane.
Guterres further stated that human activities “have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperatures reaching 1.1 degrees Celsius above (pre-Industrial temps).”
Scientists have been warning us about the dire consequences of global warming for over 50 years. The first world Climate Conference was in 1979. The IPCC was founded in 1998 to learn more about climate science and has produced five previous assessment reports, with increasing confidence of the causes and severe impacts from the changing climate. In 2006, former Vice President’s Al Gore published “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It.”
In 2008, college professors founded the organization 350.org. Their goal was to create a global climate campaign to keep the C02 levels below 350 ppm, considered the highest safe level. The levels have been consistently rising since, reaching 414 ppm in 2021. The last time the atmosphere had that concentration, the sea level rose 90 feet and trees grew on the South Pole.
Based on the science, the 2015 Paris Agreement regarded an increase in temperature of 2 degrees Celsius as the crucial temperature tipping point, beyond which would trigger irreversible feedback loops that would accelerate further warming. The agreed-upon goal was to budget the amount of carbon that can still be released in order to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. And yet, as of now, we are on track to exceed that budget by 2030 and for a global temperature increase of 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
Why haven’t we been listening – and effectively acting on – decades of warnings from scientists and climate activists? In large part due to the billions of dollars spent by the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests to obfuscate, distract and outright lie about the consequences of burning coal, oil and gas. And because the truth of our unsustainable consumption patterns and broken economic system is indeed inconvenient to face in our daily lives.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 would have consequentially reduced U.S. carbon emissions but failed due to well-funded lobbying. That is just one example of how efforts to combat the worst impacts of climate change were stymied by misinformation and pressures on politicians. Another tactic was to emphasize the role of individual lifestyle choices in order to deflect the role of the industry.
The reality is that it will take both structural system changes and changes in individual lifestyles. Community power may represent one of the more-effective tools for individuals to have a collective impact on reducing carbon emissions, because the opportunity to choose clean and local renewable energy sources for electricity supports the market transition away from fossil fuels. The more people that choose 100% renewable energy for their electric supply, the greater the impact.
The Inflation Reduction Act also reflects a significant opportunity to invest in a clean energy infrastructure and economy.
More importantly, they offer the opportunity for people to educate themselves and become active in organizations which are part of the worldwide climate movement to create the deeper, systemic changes necessary.
A good step for today? Form a book group to read “The Climate Book” by Greta Thunberg. It is an extraordinary collection of short essays from over 100 experts around the world to help us understand climate science and what has to be done to leave children and grandchildren an inhabitable planet.
Margaret Dillon is a member of the Jaffrey Community Power Committee and the Jaffrey Planning Board.